Battle Report: US Open 2023 Tacoma - Occultaris Campaign M5 - Squats + GSC

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It was the fated hour for the Battle for Occultaris: with the vaults being cleaned out of relics and ancient technology, all that was left was to drive the spear into the heart of the enemy.  By the grace of the Emperor of Mankind himself, a brief vox window opened in the interferance allowing Faustus to contact the battle barge above:

Send everything down.

And so drop ships and drop pods decended to the surface, reinforcing the Ultramarines with much needed supplies, equipment, and additional forces.

The Ravenous Hordes would be sending everything they had, but they would be ready to stomp them into the mud.

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Battle Report:

Ruleset: 2023 Tenth Edition Leviathan US Open Narrative Missions, Tyrannic War Crusade
Mission: Against the Swarm

Points: 2000 

Special Rules: 2 vs 1 (as they needed someone to play 2 opponents)

Mission Objectives

At the end of the battle, the defender scores 20VPfor each objective marker that remains on the battlefield, and the Attackers score 15VP for each objective marker that was destroyed.

At the end of the battle, the attackers score 15VP if they have two or more units wholly within the Defender's deployment zone that are not below half-strength.

My Forces:

+ Leaders +

• Primus Leo Exevio Faustus - Captain in Terminator Armour: Warlord - Enhancement: Artificer Armour, Crusade Relic: Artificer Weapon: Power Fist, Brutal Heirloom Storm Bolter
• Praelior Tarquinius Iulian Regulus - Chaplain in Terminator Armour:  Crozius arcanum, Storm bolter
• Lexicanium Flavi - Force Sword, Bolt Pistol

+ (Troops) +

• Squad Cornelius - 10 man Tactical Squad - Power Fist, Plasma pistol, Bolt pistols, Meltagun, Heavy Bolter, Bolters
• Squad Kaiel- 5 man Tactical Squad - Chainsword, Plasma pistol, Bolt pistols, Meltagun, Heavy Bolter, Bolters

+ (Elites) +

• Squad Tourbillion - 5 man Terminator Squad: Teleport Homer, Power sword, Storm bolter, Assault cannon, 3x Chainfist, Power fist, Only the Swift Survive
• Squad Nox - 5man Terminator Assault Squad: Teleport Homer,  5x Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield
• Squad Lazarus- 5 man Assault Squad w/ Jump Packs: Bolt Pistols, Chainswords, 1x Grav-pistol, 1x Power Fist, Headhunters
• Squad Velox - 5 man Vanguard Veterans Squad: Heirloom Relic Blade, 4x Storm Shields, 3x Heirloom Thunder Hammers, 1x Heirloom Lightning Claws (pair)
• Venerable Brother Psigoras "Fury" - Dreadnought: Dreadnought melee weapon w/ Storm bolter, Twin Lascannon

+ (Heavy Support) +

• Squad Nero - 5 man Devastator Squad: Power sword, plasma pistol, 3x Lascannon, Missile Launcher
• Land Raider One - Land Raider - Twin Heavy Bolter, 2x Godhammer Lascannons - Reinforced Superstructure

+ (Fast Attack) +

• "One Charlie" - Land Speeder Tornado: Heavy flamer, Multi-melta, Finely Balanced, Precise Multi-melta

Takeaways & Analysis:

This was the battle I was waiting for.  As luck would have it, a player came up to me and asked if I would be ok playing a 2000 point game 1v2.  I said 'sure....' a bit surprised and unsure if he was being serious as I though the factions were still balanced.  Sure enough he was serious, apparently some players had to leave early or something and they needed someone to take on two opponents.

Mark and Max had Squats and Genestealer Cults respectively - or a mining guild that had some mysterious contact with strange xeno organisms inadvertently.

This would be great because I knew that at 1000 points it was really tough to put together a good list with the stuff I have and control the larger board, but with 2000 points everything clicks into place and I have a lot of options.  I threw together a list I had been experimenting with already a bit, but afterwards I realized I didn't field Squad Uzziel when I should have, so I actually played about 1900 or so points.  This is ok though since typically in a 1v2 situation the side with two players is at a slight disadvantage.

They started with more crusade points than I did so I took the basic "High Strategy" crusade blessing to keep it easy.  Turns out that really paid off starting with 2 CP.

Everything was a bit of a blur and I think we only got through 2 battle rounds, but it was a lot of fun.  The genestealers swarmed at me really fast but while Squad Nox took the brunt of the assault, Squad Velox, Squad Lazarus, and the rest managed to drive them back.

My opponents realized they made a bit of a mistake thinking they could do a shock & awe style blitz to push me back into my deployment zone while the space dwarves swooped in to destroy the objectives.  It turned out that only one unit per turn could perform the action to destroy the node.  Just like my mistake the first game, this somewhat sealed their fate early because by pushing so hard I was able to make a brutal counter-strike.

Remembering the lessons learned from the prior games, I concentrated my heaviest fire towards the side of the board that had their hardest hitting vehicles, and this time I had enough firepower to ensure that Oath of Moment could take out at least one vehicle per turn.  I actually ended up destroying two mining trucks and the big land fortress, which exploded in what might have been the first and most impressive explosions of the day!  Smoke was amazing for the Land Raider and allowed it to barely survive and return fire.

Squad Nox falls but Squad Lazarus moves in with the Hammer of Wrath to support Regulus

Also, this game I loaded up a tactical squad lead by a librarian into the land raider for a 4++ invuln OC 20 unit that was really hard to shift off the objective on that same side.  Between them, Squad Nox, and Squad Velox I had 3 extremely durable squads in each third of the board and it really helped me maintain a presence.  

By the end of turn 2 I had beamed in Squad Tourbillion lead by Brother Captain Faustus into the Votann backline and they were really in no position to continue.  It was an epic finale to a really fun weekend, and my opponents were great sports.  Also, while they lost the battle, their faction actually won the Occultaris Campaign by the slimmest of margins which will advance the story for the grand narrative later in the year.

It was really great to finally play a 2000 point game - its nice to see how the full army works.

Battle Report: US Open 2023 Tacoma - Occultaris Campaign M4 - Tyranids

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After a crushing defeat that left their war materiel sabotaged, Faustus and his command had finally found the vaults and precious relics of Occultaris, but the way was blocked by xenos.

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Battle Report:

Ruleset: 2023 Tenth Edition Leviathan US Open Narrative Missions, Tyrannic War Crusade
Mission: Empty the Vaults

Points: 1000

Mission Objectives

At the end of each battle round, each player scores 5 VP for each of the following conditions:

• They control one or more objective markers.
• They control two or more objective markers.

At the end of each battle round, the player who controls the most objective markers also scores an additional 10 VP

My Forces:

+ Leaders +

• Primus Leo Exevio Faustus - Captain in Terminator Armour: Warlord - Enhancement: Artificer Armour, Crusade Relic: Artificer Weapon: Power Fist, Brutal Heirloom Storm Bolter

+ (Elites) +

• Squad Tourbillion - 5 man Terminator Squad: Teleport Homer, Power sword, Storm bolter, Assault cannon, 3x Chainfist, Power fist
• Squad Lazarus- 5 man Assault Squad w/ Jump Packs: Bolt Pistols, Chainswords, 1x Grav-pistol, 1x Power Fist
• Squad Uzziel - 5 man Tyrannic War Veterans: Boltguns, Bolt pistols, combat weapons

+ (Heavy Support) +

• Squad Nero - 5 man Devastator Squad: Power sword, plasma pistol, 3x Lascannon, Missile Launcher
• Land Raider One - Land Raider - Twin Heavy Bolter, 2x Godhammer Lascannons - Reinforced Superstructure

+ (Fast Attack) +

• "One Charlie" - Land Speeder Tornado: Heavy flamer, Multi-melta, Finely Balanced, Precise Multi-melta

Takeaways & Analysis

This was quite a punishing game for both sides, lots of units killed.  The mission "Auto-seal Protocols" are a bit of a let down though because whichever side gets their objective marker randomly removed is put at a disadvantage pretty hard.  I think the mission would be designed a lot better if it was an even removal of objectives that either progressively funnel you into the center, or to one of the sides.  As such, I lost out on the removal of the first objective and it was pretty hard to recover from that with only 1000 points of units.  

My opponent was still learning the game a bit so we were going a bit slow and only got to finish battle round 3.  Still it was a good game where we traded big monsters/vehicles and had a brawl in the center.

But Brother Sergeant Lazarus, last of his squad, will forever be remembered for throwing a melta grenade at the Malwoc that dealt 6 mortal wounds!  This day, 4536022.M42 will be marked on his service record!

Additionally, it was great to see Squad Uzziel, the Tyrannic War Veterans, be put to their maximum use.  They were quite effective when they were able to get into range to shoot, and actually they provided a lot of menace to my opponent, who actually elected to use the 'sabotaged' bonus against them from the faction victory from the previous game.  It might have been better off to have loaded them into the Land Raider and send them into the middle and then beam in the Terminators, but it was tricky with so few units to cover the objectives.

Also, I didn't capitalize so well on the focus fire from Oath of Moment with all of my big guns - but it was hard to do given the layout.  I was able to destroy several monsters, but he had 3 big shooty monsters to my one plus one shooty squad.

After finishing off the swarm of hormagaunts that wouldn't die I conceded since we ran out of time.  There wasn't much of a way to climb back through either points or killing everything: the Land Raider had died and he still had a lot of units.

Battle Report: US Open 2023 Tacoma - Occultaris Campaign M3 - Sisters

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The Tenuous Allies, after extending out from the drop sites to secure supplies, stumbled into the the plans of the Ravenous Hordes all along: to infiltrate and sabotage their back lines, in an Insurgency!

As the vox static cleared, it became apparent that the Adepta Sororitas had declared any Imperial Forces working in even a 'tenuous alliance' with xenos in an effort to secure the relics of Occultaris would be considered heresy.  Faustus was unimpressed with their demands as he gestured to have the audio cut - the Ecclesiarchy did not dictate the actions of Adeptus Terra, let alone Adeptus Astartes, but he wondered what the true motivation was...

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Battle Report:

Ruleset: 2023 Tenth Edition Leviathan US Open Narrative Missions, Tyrannic War Crusade
Mission: Insurgency

Points: 1000

Mission Objectives

At the end of the battle:

• The attacker scores 20VP for each primed objective marker on the battlefield.
• The Defender scores 15VP for each unprimed objective marker on the battlefield

My Forces:

+ Leaders +

• Primus Leo Exevio Faustus - Captain in Terminator Armour: Warlord - Enhancement: Artificer Armour, Crusade Relic: Artificer Weapon: Power Fist

+ (Elites) +

• Squad Tourbillion - 5 man Terminator Squad: Teleport Homer, Power sword, Storm bolter, Assault cannon, 3x Chainfist, Power fist
• Squad Lazarus- 5 man Assault Squad w/ Jump Packs: Bolt Pistols, Chainswords, 1x Grav-pistol, 1x Power Fist
• Squad Uzziel - 5 man Tyrannic War Veterans: Boltguns, Bolt pistols, combat weapons

+ (Heavy Support) +

• Squad Nero - 5 man Devastator Squad: Power sword, plasma pistol, 3x Lascannon, Missile Launcher
• Land Raider One - Land Raider - Twin Heavy Bolter, 2x Godhammer Lascannons - Reinforced Superstructure

+ (Fast Attack) +

• "One Charlie" - Land Speeder Tornado: Heavy flamer, Multi-melta

Takeaways & Analysis

 This one didn't go so well for Faustus and his Ultramarines.  The mission called for the attacking sisters to prime explosives on each objective and had the 'Counter-assult Engagement' parameter so that the defender (the Ultramarines) had the first turn.  I made the gamble to throw everything I had at the Castigator tank in the backfield since it was pretty much the only thing I could see, and then drop the Terminators out and charge them and the Assault Marines into the Retributor Squad hiding in a building to the northeast.

My bold moves didn't pay off - not only was I not able to completely destroy the tank (only 2 wounds remaining!) but none of my infantry was able to get a charge off.  What followed was a chain of events where we got melted to slag pretty quick.  I had pretty cold dice while my opponent had hot dice, so it was quite a stomping.  This was definitely one where I probably would have been better off just hiding for the first turn.

While every unit was destroyed, it was fitting that only Faustus took a battle scar - he did get lasered in the face by a Vindicare sniper.  I immediately removed it with my hard earned RP.

Battle Report: US Open 2023 Tacoma - Occultaris Campaign M2 - Necrons

 

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Brother Captain Faustus: "In their haste to secure the drop sites, the Tenuous Allies are low on supplies. We must claim the resources about the area before the enemies of the Imperium capitalize on the situation."

"Squad Tourbillion will accompany me in Land Raider One.  Squads Lazarus and Uzziel will deploy to the flanks with Squad Nero providing withering cover fire from a position in the ruins designated as Sigma 2."

"Crush the enemies of the Emperor."

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The second of 3 matches on the first day of the US Open narrative campaign was against James' exceptionally well painted Necron army.  Having leveled up after the first match, Faustus was sporting a master crafted power fist as well as some artificer terminator tactical dreadnought armour.

Battle Report:

Ruleset: 2023 Tenth Edition Leviathan US Open Narrative Missions, Tyrannic War Crusade
Mission: Scattered Supplies

Points: 1000

Mission Objectives:

At the end of the battle, each player scores 15VP for each objective marker that units from their crusade army are carrying, and an additional 5VP for those units that are wholly within the player's deployment zone.

My Forces:

+ Leaders +

• Primus Leo Exevio Faustus - Captain in Terminator Armour: Warlord - Enhancement: Artificer Armour, Crusade Relic: Artificer Weapon: Power Fist

+ (Elites) +

• Squad Tourbillion - 5 man Terminator Squad: Teleport Homer, Power sword, Storm bolter, Assault cannon, 3x Chainfist, Power fist
• Squad Lazarus- 5 man Assault Squad w/ Jump Packs: Bolt Pistols, Chainswords, 1x Grav-pistol, 1x Power Fist
• Squad Uzziel - 5 man Tyrannic War Veterans: Boltguns, Bolt pistols, combat weapons

+ (Heavy Support) +

• Squad Nero - 5 man Devastator Squad: Power sword, plasma pistol, 3x Lascannon, Missile Launcher
• Land Raider One - Land Raider - Twin Heavy Bolter, 2x Godhammer Lascannons

+ (Fast Attack) +

• "One Charlie" - Land Speeder Tornado: Heavy flamer, Multi-melta

Takeaways & Analysis

Oath of Moment wins the day again for the Land Raider - it managed to blast away a wing of Tomb Blades with supporting fire from Squad Nero on the first turn.

On the Northern flank, Squad Lazarus and Squad Tourbillion lead by Brother Captain Leo Faustus himself eliminate a squad of Skorpekh  Destroyers and their leader (and kill him twice as he tries to get up).  They manage to pry some supplies out of its cold, (un)dead hands (space undead).

Meanwhile, Squad Uzziel grabbed supplies and retreated into the deployment zone as the land raider moved down the southern flank to secure another supply cache.  It took heavy fire from some heavy destroyers and turned back to escape.

With 4 of the 6 supply drops secured, and the massive damage sustained by the land raider, Faustus signals a tactical withdrawal, himself carrying the last supply drop, as the mission objectives were achieved.

Only One Charlie was lost (again), this time taking a battle scar as one of the crew members sustained fatal injuries.

Battle Report: US Open 2023 Tacoma - Occultaris Campaign M1 - Death Guard

This year I participated in the 2023 US Open Tacoma Narrative Campaign.  Last year I just went for a single friendly match (incidentally, it was at the same convention center, but this year they referred to it as the actual city of Tacoma, rather than by the larger metropolitan area of Seattle). After gaining a lot of experience in the Vadinax Campaign, and having a lot of fun, I went for the narrative crusade this time around, even though it would be a daunting 5 games over two days.

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A tremor rattles through the craft, from bow to stern. Surely we have not translated into realspace, you think to yourself. The journey was meant to last months, not mere days. You make your way to the bridge where it is immediately clear that you have somehow left the Warp. You demand answers from your staff and receive none. They are as shocked and ignorant to the greater situation as you are. One moment they were on a relatively peaceful journey through the Warp, minds and bodies shielded from the insanity around them by the Gellar Field, the next moment they were forced into realspace.

 As hours tick by with maddening speed; you begin to develop a picture of the situation. Before you sits a handful of lush and verdant worlds. Seemingly (and shockingly) untouched by the ravaging tendrils of the horror designated Leviathan, from which you were fleeing. Initial scans show the system does carry a name, though even after extensive scrying and aggressive attempts to break security protocols, all that is ever returned is REDACTED. The system is under quarantine by the Administratum, which matters little to you. You are here and with every passing hour; more craft arrive.

An unspoken détente has emerged between the voidcraft that have arrived. No attempts to hail one another have been made, no noosphere updates, no vox calls, nothing. At last check, over three dozen craft sit, seemingly dormant. However, each one is steadily moving towards an area that is empty on all astrocartographs. Despite this, there is clearly something there. At first, you felt it. Deep in your soul, a subtle and longing drive to be there…. Wherever ‘there’ is.

 As every voidcraft moves towards the allegedly empty area, you see it. Its surface reflects little light. What augurs and scans the varied ships use return suggestions of subsurface structures and weak bio-signatures, although most unaccountably fail to register the world at all. But it is there. 

 Its presence is verified by a sudden burst of vox traffic from the surface. Auspex scans immediately identify it as a rescue beacon commonly used by Adeptus Mechanicus Data-Hoard Forges when under attack. The beacon makes clear the importance of the data-hoard on the surface. It is of integral value to the Imperium and thus it is of great value to any enterprising commander, regardless of affiliation or loyalty to the God-Emperor.

 You have a choice to make; do you assist this Command Entity (as it refers to itself in the now repeating vox traffic)? Or do you take advantage of this situation and take what the Command Entity has? 

 You give the order without even considering the options at hand, ‘All forces, prepare for landing’. The bridge explodes in activity around you. You smile as your subordinates enact your will.  The planet quietly reveals its name to you.

Occultaris awaits.

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Task Force Faustus was en route back to the Vadinax Sector.  After a brutal campaign on Tern's Endeavor, still unresolved, the Battle Barge Excelsior and escorts are pulled from the warp at Occultaris.  Vox traffic indicates other Imperial forces on the way back to Tern's Endeavor were pulled into realspace as well - such as Strike Force Pegasus, and non-Imperial forces as well.

An uneasy alliance is formed to assist the Command Entity.  The Tenuous Allies...

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Battle Report:

Ruleset: 2023 Tenth Edition Leviathan US Open Narrative Missions, Tyrannic War Crusade
Mission: Kicking the Nest

Points: 1000

Mission Objectives:

5 VP for each of the following conditions:

• Controlling one or more objective markers
• Controlling more objective markers than the opponent
• Their Warlord is within range of an objective marker that they control
• They Control the objective marker in the center of the battlefield

My Forces:

+ Leaders +

• Primus Leo Exevio Faustus - Captain in Terminator Armour: Warlord

+ (Elites) +

• Squad Tourbillion - 5 man Terminator Squad: Teleport Homer, Power sword, Storm bolter, Assault cannon, 3x Chainfist, Power fist
• Squad Lazarus- 5 man Assault Squad w/ Jump Packs: Bolt Pistols, Chainswords, 1x Grav-pistol, 1x Power Fist
• Squad Uzziel - 5 man Tyrannic War Veterans: Boltguns, Bolt pistols, combat weapons

+ (Heavy Support) +

• Squad Nero - 5 man Devastator Squad: Power sword, plasma pistol, 3x Lascannon, Missile Launcher
• Land Raider One - Land Raider - Twin Heavy Bolter, 2x Godhammer Lascannons

+ (Fast Attack) +

• "One Charlie" - Land Speeder Tornado: Heavy flamer, Multi-melta

Takeaways & Analysis

The Tenuous Allies won priority and got to attack first.  Faustus arrived to find the Death Guard had infiltrated the area.  Our additional objectives were to secure buildings.

The machine spirits of Land Raider One were appeased after it destroyed both a deep striking Death Shroud unit and the Plaugeburst Crawler.

Meanwhile Squad Lazarus droped from the skies to finish off a squad of Death Guard Terminators engaged with Faustus on the center objective - Hammer of Wrath!

Faustus himself destroyed a bloat drone with a well placed grenade launched from his Auxiliary Grenade Launcher.

While the Death Guard were battered severely, they managed to get their warlord onto an objective marker long enough to achieve whatever foul agendas they were after.  (If only I had read the rules and sat Faustus on an objective, I would have kept up enough points for the win).  Nevertheless, Faustus achieved 3 points of fame for fighting on the center objective, and overall the Tenuous Allies won the round.

The Ultramarines only suffered one casualty - One Charlie crashed, but both pilots walked away.

My opponent Brian was really friendly and it was a great first game!

Assault Squad Arms!

With the release of 10th edition of 40k the Vanguard Veterans got some less than favorable changes.  But, luckily I anticipated the need to be very flexible with their loadouts and magnetized their arms.  While unfortunately the magnets are a bit weak and make them a bit fiddley - I'm able to change them into a basic assault squad with ye ol' humble bolt pistol and chainsword.  The assault squad rules might be someone more favorable, but also makes the squad a bit cheaper which is another benefit now that it is much harder to adjust army lists with how they are doing points right now.

Anyway - its just fun to have chainswords and I was able to create these fairly quickly for the upcoming narrative campaign at the 2023 US Open.

The greenstuff let me down a bit - I was going to hide it with gore, but maybe I'll add that later.  I'm really happy with how the hazard stripes turned out.  This was also the first time really trying to do the chipping effect.  Both the hazard stripes and the iconography were achieved using some stencils that I bought online.  The stencils are intended for use with airbrushes, but that's not something I have access to, so I tried a technique I saw that involved using a sponge to blot on the paint.  They had used the technique on flatter vehicle surfaces with stencils that were much bigger.  Here the technique didn't work so well on the curved shoulder pauldrons - and at first they were a complete disaster.  So much so that I only used the stencil for the Ultramarines icon, I ended up just free-handing the assault squad arrows.

In the end I was able to salvage it since I was intending on them looking chipped, and so after some effort touching them up in spots they turned out passible.  The stencil did much better on the flat sword surface, but also instead of blotting with a sponge, I used a brush and just tried to stay in the lines as close as possible without touching them.  I'll give it another go next project, this was sort of a test run for the Rhinos.  That project is still WIP and I'm making progress which I'll update on soon.